


The One True Thing

by zubeneschamali



Series: That Pink Silk Robe [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, M/M, Truth Spells, Wincest - Freeform, bunker!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 03:32:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14011251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zubeneschamali/pseuds/zubeneschamali
Summary: Written for deirdre_c's prompt of the books in the Men of Letters' library doing strange things to people: in this case, getting Sam to say something to Dean he had sworn he would always keep to himself. Set between 8.13 and 8.14.





	The One True Thing

It took Sam two weeks to figure out the cataloging system that was already in place in the Men of Letters' library. Once he and Dean were back from Pennsylvania, he started going through the library, book by book, checking to make sure they were each catalogued correctly. Dean gave him a hard time for getting his librarian kink on until Sam found him trying on a robe that was more pink and silky than the grey terrycloth one he'd been wearing before. Then Dean muttered something about how maybe they should keep their noses out of each other's business and shut the door in Sam's face.

Leaving the image of Dean in pink silk burned into his brain.

To distract himself from thoughts he knew he shouldn't be having anymore, Sam spent long days in the library, promising himself that he wouldn't read any of the books until he knew they were all catalogued. That lasted about a day, until he came across a grimoire that he knew Bobby had searched for for years. Dean found him around midnight, still cross-legged on the floor, and had to physically remove the book from his hands and haul him to bed.

After that, Sam let himself page through the most interesting books, making mental notes about the ones to return to later. He lost track of the number of times he muttered, "I wish we'd had this when…" He didn't bother telling Dean about any of those times, not wanting to burst the bubble of contentment that had settled around Dean ever since he turned the key in the lock outside.

It was a crimson-bound volume that caught his attention one afternoon, slender and gilt-edged. When he saw the word 'Veritas' stamped on the cover, Sam briefly closed his eyes. Not all of the details of his soulless days were sharp in his mind, but he clearly remembered Dean's face when the goddess told him Sam wasn't entirely human. His hand came up to touch his cheek, memories of the ensuing beatdown just as bright and painful.

"Might as well see," Sam muttered, flipping open the finely-worked leather cover.

He was pleased to see that they had figured out most of what was in the volume on their own, and the parts they hadn't known wouldn't have made a difference in the end. There was plenty about Veritas's ability to make people tell the truth, and that, too, Sam could remember, the dark pleasure he'd taken at still being able to lie to Dean when he thought he was being so damn clever.

He shook his head and read on. There were scribbled notes in the margin of one of the pages, and Sam's lips moved as he puzzled out the words. It obviously wasn't Henry's neat block writing, given the convolutions of the script, and it wasn't until he was almost to the last word that he realized he was reading a spell. "Shit!" Sam swore, quickly closing the book.

The last words of the spell echoed in his head, even though he hadn't said them aloud. Res verum unum.

Sam quickly moved to another section of the library, but he couldn't stop thinking about it. Latin didn't have articles like English did, so it should have said res verum, true thing or true property or true matter. The unum was like an italicized 'the,' like it was saying 'the one true thing.' He was half tempted to go back and read the rest of the spell again, figure out what it had meant, but half scared to find out. At least he hadn't said it all, though any brush with Veritas made him nervous.

It wasn't until after dinner, when they were sharing another drink of well-aged whiskey to wash down the taste of fifty-year-old MREs, that Sam first felt it. It was a tickle at the back of his throat, like a cough or a sneeze, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was, "Dean, I never stopped—"

Then Sam clapped his hand over his mouth, horrified. He knew the rest of what he had been about to say, and goddamn it, he must have said enough of the spell for it to kick in, and now what the fuck was he going to do?

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, but Sam was already shooting up out of his chair, headed for the room where he'd been sleeping. Maybe if he said it out loud, that would be enough. He waved a hand at Dean and put the other one over his stomach, hoping that would send the right signal. Dean's screwed-up face suggested it had, and Sam gratefully escaped.

His reprieve didn't last long. Dean was knocking on his door within ten minutes, demanding to know what was going on. Sam took a deep breath. He'd made his confession to the empty air of his bedroom, and that strange sensation was no longer in his throat. Figuring the spell had run its course, he flung open the door, ready to say something about how maybe it was time to start buying groceries and cooking their own meals instead of relying on preservatives from the 1950s.

Instead, he looked Dean in the eye and said, "I have never stopped wanting you."

For a second, there was dead silence. Horrified, Sam put his hand to his mouth, like he could push the words back in. Dean's eyes were wide, lips parted, and if there had been any point to it, Sam would have slammed the door in his face and hidden in his room until he became part of the dusty furnishings of the bunker.

After a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, Dean asked, "Sam?" with a thousand other questions woven into his voice: what do you mean? and are you all right? and what the hell brought this on?

Sam drew in a deep breath. He could answer the last one of those, at least. "There was a book," he explained. "About Veritas. It had a spell in it, I guess, and I didn't read the whole thing out loud, but I guess maybe I read enough."

"You guess." Dean had grimaced at the goddess's name, but now Sam could practically see the gears working in his head. "Enough to do what?"

Here it was. The moment where Sam could play it off as a practical joke, like he was getting Dean back for the 1940s clown mask that had been on his pillow last week. He wasn't feeling that strange compulsion anymore, and he knew that when he next opened his mouth, his words would be his own.

Which was why he had to tell the truth.

With more trepidation than Sam had felt facing down the gigantic golem, he put a hand on the doorframe for support. "I think the spell was based on a fraction of Veritas's power," he said quietly. "It's not strong enough to compel people to tell only the truth the way she did, but it is strong enough to make them say one true thing."

Dean's expression was unreadable. "One true thing."

Sam nodded, the words spilling out of him with as much force as he'd used to push the feelings back for all of these years. "Dean, that year was—God, it was awful and I'd never want to live it again, but there was one good thing about it." He met Dean's eyes, letting the heat he remembered fill his gaze, the way they'd clutched at each other in the dark of a hundred different motel rooms, memorizing taste and touch and feel before the hellhounds could tear it all away. There was a flicker in Dean's green gaze that suggested he was remembering the same things, and it gave Sam the courage to go on. "Then you came back, and you were…different. And I didn't realize it until later, but I was ashamed of being with Ruby. And then you found out about the blood and I thought you didn't want anything else to do with me." His fingers clenched around the doorframe. "Then we were so busy saving the world after I fucked it all up, and then when I came back…" He shrugged.

"When you came back, you were different," Dean said quietly. He took a step forward, into Sam's space. "And maybe I felt guilty for being with Lisa, I don't know. But then I couldn’t even keep your mind in one piece, and then we were so busy saving the world again…." He trailed off.

Sam swallowed. "I thought you were gone," he said, hearing the tremor in his voice. "So I tried to move on, but I couldn't even do that right."

Dean's voice was more gravelly than before. "Because you never stopped."

Sam nodded mutely.

He froze when Dean reached out to put a hand on his chest, right over his heart. "Even when you didn't have a soul?"

"That wasn't the part of me that wanted," Sam said. When Dean raised an eyebrow, he rolled his eyes. "Because it's not just a physical thing, Dean. It's…it's everything."

It was everything, laid out there on a silver platter for Dean to laugh at or discard or try and explain away like he had the first time they tumbled into bed together, the night after Dean confessed the deal he'd made and Sam's world shattered in a way it never had before but would again, more than once. It was the One Truth, the core of Sam's being for all of these years, the longing and denial and love and despair all in one.

It was Dean grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him down until their mouths crashed together like the waves on the shore.

It was the sudden rush of heat, the way Sam grabbed his brother and held him in place as their kiss slid from frantic into heated and then into something more calming, more right. It was Dean's hands shooting up under his shirts like he had to touch Sam right that very minute, and Sam twisting both flannel shirt and t-shirt off in one quick motion to make it easier for him. It was Dean giving him one long, appreciative look before shoving him back on the bed and stripping his own shirt off before climbing on top of him, and then it was all happening faster than Sam could keep track of.

Dean's hands on his body were an absolution Sam didn't even know he needed, touching him everywhere with the careful thoroughness he devoted to cleaning weapons or fixing the car. When Sam rolled them over and starting making his way down Dean's torso, mouthing at his skin and kissing the lines of scars he didn't recognize, he was granting forgiveness he hadn't realized he needed to give.

When they started thrusting in unison into the tight warmth of their clasped hands, they were on the same ground for the first time in such a very long time. Legs entwined, bodies sweat-slick and hot, they chased their release together and found it within heartbeats of each other. Sam's guttural cry echoed off the walls a second before Dean groaned his name, and they panted the same breaths as the world returned around them.

Later, after Sam got them both washcloths, because he remembered that Dean was prissy enough to demand his own even if it was his brother's come all over his chest, he sat on the edge of the bed and tried to figure out how to phrase the question. To his astonishment, Dean simply tugged him down onto his back and curled up against him, a sinuous line of muscled warmth that was going to make chilly nights in the bunker much more bearable.

Sam had his eyes closed and was slipping down past the first layer of sleep when Dean's voice rumbled in his ear from where his head was pillowed on Sam's chest. "I never stopped, either."

Sam's breath caught. He acknowledged the words with a brief caress of Dean's bare back. There wouldn't be any need to talk it out in the morning, not after that admission. He was proud of Dean for saying it, proud enough to cut him a little slack.

He'd wait at least a full day before asking Dean to wear the pink silk robe again.


End file.
